Original subtitles

The island of Ireland.

No matter where I am in the world,

I always look forward to coming home.

Want to take you with me to some of my favourite places.

I'll share my passion for food...

That's a beautiful dish. Thank you.

Maybe even a bit of creme fraiche. Creme fraiche.

Going too far, come on.

...history...

It never ceases to amaze me this monument.

How did they dream up these things? Yeah.

...and scenery.

This really must be one of the most incredible views of any form

of garden anywhere.

I'll take you behind the scenes of where I grew up...

Thank you very much, boys!

...and reveal a few secrets along the way.

You and a mate and a couple of girls,

that was a tester then, you know! It was!

As well as old favourites,

we'll go to places I've always wanted to see.

Come with me,

I'm Adrian Dunbar,

and this is My Ireland.

I was born in Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland.

Then, at the age of 20, I went to acting school in London.

Now, I split my time between the fast-paced life the Big Smoke

and the calmer serenity of the Emerald Isle.

And there's nothing I like more than returning home.

Great, we're back on the road again.

I'm very excited about some of the people are going

to meet this time.

Our journey will cover nearly 600 miles, starting in the rugged

northwest, passing through County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland,

where I grew up, into Ireland's hidden heartlands

and onto the tranquillity of Ireland's ancient east,

where we'll end in Hook Head in County Wexford.

Our first stop is a place that I've always had a strong

connection to, a Slieve League on the Wild Atlantic Way

in County Donegal.

Standing over 600 metres above the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean,

these are the highest accessible sea cliffs in Europe.

They're nearly three times higher than Ireland's famous Cliffs

of Moher and twice the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Wind and rain are common on the west of Ireland.

But, whatever the weather, I'll never tire of looking out

at this endless expanse of ocean.

I've been coming here for years and years.

Brought my family here when they were small, the kids.

It holds many, many happy memories for me.

And also some sad ones.

A great friend of mine, john Keegan, a wonderful actor, got

out of Belfast in the early '70s and came all the way

to the West Coast and took a photograph of himself standing

here looking out across the cliffs.

And then many years later, when he was very ill,

a bunch of us got together and we came back because he wanted

to replicate that photograph.

And this is the four of us Alan, myself, Patsy and john on the end.

It was a sad trip,

but john reminded us that Slieve League is a place of arrival.

It's also a place of departure.

It's an important place for me and I'm keen to learn more about it.

Hi, Cormac. Hi, Adrian. Welcome back to Slieve League.

Yeah, thanks a lot. Good to see you. Yeah, it's great to be here,

great to be here and get wee look around. Yeah.

Let's go and have a peek. Sound.

Cormac McGinley is an expert on these parts.

He set up his own walking tour business four years ago.

We'll you just head up here, this would be one

of the steeper cliffs we can get a look out of

and give you a decent a decent vantage point out

over the rest of it. Yeah, cool.

Cormac's tours showcase many parts of Ireland's magnificent coastline.

But, with the dramatic scenery, it's here in Slieve League

where the walks are said to be some of the best.

So, yeah, these were forced up about 400 million years ago.

You had a tectonic impact, where two plates came together. Right.

Ancl shoved all these sandstone layers up into these mountains.

Ancl at the time, the Atlantic didn't exist,

we were connected to America,

so this was part of the Appalachian Mountain chain.

Wow. It was pushed up, it actually runs into Scotland.

Ancl as the Atlantic formed, that we were kind of parted from each other.

Yes. So it's been recognised as the International Appalachian

Trail in recent years, the trail to actually connect them,

for somebody who's keen on a big walk!

That is a big one. It's a big one. Yeah. Yeah.

OK.

Ah!

Hello! How's it going?

Aw, you're wondering what's happening.

So, Cormac, you grew up in this area,

and you're lucky enough to be able to stay here,

to work here, how did all that come about?

Well, I grew up actually in one of the last houses on the way up the road here. Right.

So this was kind of our back yard, like this is where we walk the clogs

and I my father fished from the harbour

there and he was a fisherman. Right.

So we spent all their time here.

But, as a kid, I enjoy, I loved it,

I probably didn't appreciate it for what an amazing place it was.

I know.

For over 1,000 years, the cliffs have been a place

of sacred Christian pilgrimage.

The remnants and relics offer a glimpse into the lives

of those from ancient times gone by.

And what's the first sign of habitation around here,

I mean is it the Megalithic Period?

Well, in this area, yeah, there's evidence that was back

10,500 years. Wow!

And, more recently, there's been DNA evidence that suggests

there might have been people here 33,000 years ago.

Wow! Which puts them in the Ice Age. Right.

Ancl if they were here, they may have been something like this,

Sami people like in Norway.

Seasonal reindeer hunters and herders.

Wow, so this is the result of a lot of glacial activity, obviously,

all down through here.

These have been a mountain range for a long time,

but, as sea cliffs, it's a much more recent thing.

I would estimate that none of the cliff faces here are older

than 5,000 to 7,000 years old. OK.

They kind of give a false sense of permanence because of the scale.

The scale, yeah. People think they've been here forever.

Yeah. But anybody who's been fishing under them for years, or working

on them, gets to see big chunks fall off every now and then

and get reminded.

Get reminded that it's still... A work in progress.

...a work in progress. Yeah.

Well, I've been here loads of times over the years, you know.

I saw you years ago all right, when I was a kid, yeah,

I must've been 19, I remember seeing you in a bar.

In a bar? Of course!

Who was I with? You were with Neil Morrissey,

he was in Men Behaving Badly at the time. Right, OK.

And was he behaving badly?

No, we were behaving badly,

we were giggling in the corner, thinking of saying something

to yous, but sure we didn't have the nerve!

Right, OK.

While Cormac spends his days on top of the cliffs,

his brother Micheal makes his living beneath them.

Micheal is a lobster fisherman who goes out every morning

to tend his pots.

Nice to meet you. How's it going, brother, all right?

Yeah, nice to see you.

He's invited me to join him and choose a lobster for lunch.

So we're heading to the relatively calm waters of the bay,

where Micheal keeps a stash of previously caught lobsters.

This is just keeping these guys fresh? This is keeping them alive.

So, like, I cook them up fresh every clay, so I'll come down here

and I'll take five or six, whatever, for the clay.

Yeah. Cook them up, take them up, sell out,

and then I get to go home and enjoy the rest.

Right, that sounds good to me.

Usually it takes about seven years for them to get to size.

Seven years? Seven years to the size. They live in hard ground,

they like rocky ground.

Where I catch them mainly is as close to the cliff edge

is the best ground around here to catch them.

It's also more dangerous ground to be fishing them.

Yeah. You know, cos you're so close to the edge.

Well, I do like a bit of lobster myself.

You can pick out whatever one you want. Right.

It's tricky, isn't it? There's a boy there, look.

Aye, it's enough for a sandwich anyway. Enough for a sandwich? Aye, definitely.

Right, OK, that'll do that then.

Right. Easy!

MICHEAL LAUGHS

Michael is following in the footsteps of many before him,

as lobster fisheries are one of the most traditional amongst

Irish coastal communities.

He dishes up his lobster rolls from his tiny food truck

that sits on top of the cliff.

Oh, that looks good.

There you go.

Wow, man! Wow, wow, wow, wow!

Lemon, the whole lot.

Gosh, this looks fantastic, boys.

Oh, yeah.

See what you think.

Mm! That's so good!

Roughing it again, boys, you've some rough life too, haven't you?

But somebody has to struggle through, you know?

Well, I'll struggle with you, I'll tell you that!

Any brown sauce?

I'll hold you back! I am joking, of course.

It's been one hell of a day, boys.

Thanks very much. I'll tell you,

plenty of fresh air, we'll sleep tonight!

Next, after years of wanting to go,

I finally get to the enchanting gardens of Glenveagh Castle.

You come into it and you know you've arrived somewhere really special.

And to a top restaurant, where I help make a local dish

with one of Ireland's most well-loved chefs.

It's a very Irish looking dish, isn't it?

We wanted you to feel at home. Yeah, yeah.

I'm Adrian Dunbar, and I'm excited to be taking you to places

I've always wanted to get to, but never quite found the time.

We're on our way to Glenveagh National Park in County Donegal, way

up in the North, which was gifted many years ago to the Irish state.

Many, many famous people were there in the past, including

Greta Garbo, who famously said, "I want to be alone".

Well, if you want to be alone,

this is probably one of the places to do it.

Glenveagh is in the heart of the Derryveagh Mountains

in the northwest of Donegal.

At nearly 42,000 acres,

it's the second largest National Park in Ireland

and it's spectacular.

A remote wilderness of enchanting landscape.

On the shores of Lake Veagh is the star of the show,

the hauntingly beautiful Glenveagh Castle.

Built as a hunting lodge,

its remote mountain setting was inspired by the Victorian idyll

of a romantic Highland retreat.

It was the vision of john George Adair, a wealthy Irish land

speculator, who completed the building in 1867.

Surrounding the castle are 27 acres

of captivating gardens and walks.

Welcome to Glenveagh.

Hi, Sean.

Wow! It's quite extraordinary.

Yeah. it really is. Yeah.

You come into it and you know you've arrived somewhere really special, don't you?

I have a keen interest in gardens myself and I like to spend as much

time as I can in my own in London.

Coming here is something I've wanted to do for many years

and getting a private tour with the head gardener Sean,

well, it's a real treat.

We have 1,700 different kinds of plants in the garden.

Wow! That's just the diversity.

Ancl then there's, in some cases, hundreds of the same variety.

The Gardens were first designed by john Adair's wife, Cornelia,

a wealthy American heiress.

She developed Glenveagh.

Really the entire cultural imprints that we have here

is Mrs Adair, this American woman.

The layout has been designed for each area to flow into the next.

So this is the pleasure grounds. Oh, this is beautiful.

So this is actually reclaimed bog.

Huge amounts of topsoil were brought in here to make

this garden for Mrs Adair.

So this was where the guests would come down into the lawn to play

croquet on the lawn and enjoy the outdoor air.

Over the years, the estate passed through different owners.

The last was Henry McElhinny, who bought Glenveagh in 1937.

He's responsible for much of what we see today.

Henry McElhinny brought another layer of decorative arts

to Glenveagh.

There's 250 items of ornamentation in the garden.

So, the whole thing is the result of

a huge amount of intellectual gardening

consciousness that all comes together over many, many years.

Yeah. And to leave us with what we have now?

The layers of history that make it so nice, yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

What vision these early designers had.

As well as the pleasure grounds,

there's a walled garden,

an Italian terrace and a Belgian walk.

So Mrs Adair made the castle available to the British War Office

in 1915, and about 60 Belgian soldiers were sent

here to convalesce. Right.

With injuries from the First World War.

Ancl so, while they were here, they helped the gardener to make

this path we're walking on.

So that's how it got the name the Belgian Walk.

Nice. Ancl it's wonderful, because the path follows the slope

through the native woodland.

Yeah. So we have this fantastic native oak canopy above us.

At over 200 acres,

it's one of the biggest patches of oak woodland

in the whole of Ireland.

Every part of these gardens has been thoughtfully designed

and Sean has created his own addition

to add to the layers of history.

I actually designed that... Did you? Yeah, and had it built.

The inspiration for this came from Highgrove,

Prince Charles's garden in England.

He has one of these wooden built temples.

Ancl then we took the Greek proportions, one and seven,

so there's a perfect square in the design.

So, then when you're in a two, you kind of feel the sense of...

Yeah. ..this is kind of to scale, it fits. It is, it fits.

So it sits very nicely in the pleasure grounds.

Well, you know, as a gardener here, you must feel connected

to history in some very, very tangible way?

You're talking about we're standing on the shoulders of all

the gardeners who worked here for the last hundred years, too.

So you're looking at the work of many hands,

and we're the current hands. Yes.

Yeah, so we're keepers. Keepers, yeah, we have the use of it.

We're just the keepers. We just have the use of it. Yeah.

Beautiful.

What a privilege to see the gardens through the eyes

of someone so passionate.

After all that exploring, I'm ready for a bite to eat.

Around 80 miles away is a restaurant I've wanted to visit

for many, many years.

Blacklion is a tiny rural village in County Cavan.

It may not be as well known as other places in Ireland,

but its popularity is rising.

Part of this is thanks to one of Ireland's most famous

and best-loved chefs.

Here he is, the man of the moment!

You're welcome to Blacklion. Thank you.

Come on into the school. It's about time we met, I think.

We'll do a bit of cooking first. Fantastic, yeah.

So this is our school here.

Beautiful. Ancl I have an apron for you.

Oh, right, OK.

We're going to get you suited and booted.

Chef Neven Maguire has published 12 cookbooks and his award-winning

MacNean House and Restaurant has firmly placed the tiny village

of Blacklion on the culinary map.

There's a long waiting list to get a table.

I've heard so much about you, Neven

My mother was the first person to tell me, "Your fella Neven,

"he's cooking such great grub down there," you know?

At the core of Neven's philosophy is a commitment to using only

the finest local seasonal ingredients,

so I know I'm in for a treat.

We're going to cook a bit of duck? We are, we're going to cook some local cluck, Adrian.

So now you're going to be my assistant? I see, yeah!

You look well, I have to say.

Well, you know, I'll try me best not to cut me hands off! OK.

Might have to put me glasses on. If you want to, that's fine.

What we're going to do, I'm going to get you to do a little bit of chopping.

This is a celeriac, so this is a beautiful root vegetable.

But what we're going to do is just peel it.

I'm going to get you to cut into small, little cubes.

I'm so impressed with what you've achieved here.

I mean, a lot of people who reach your standard of cuisine,

you know, would go elsewhere and do their stuff,

but you've stayed here and you've developed

the business here and you source locally.

You know, I'm so proud of where I come from.

Mum and Dad started here 33 years ago.

We have 60 people employed in the small little village,

we have a full time gardener here,

so it's about local and changing the menu with the seasons,

I think that's important.

We have a huge opportunity here in this island with food,

food, for me, is the future of this island.

How are you getting on? OK? Well, you know...

You're a natural, come on! We're having a go.

Do you like cooking yourself? I love cooking, yeah.

Do you like duck? I love duck. Thank God.

I love duck, I love duck.

Your mother was a great cook?

My mother was a great cook, she cooked in the council up in Enniskillen. OK.

She was a great baker, she was always on the scone, treacle bread,

wheaten bread, she was great at all that.

You start learning a few things. And you're like me,

you're from a big family. Yeah, that's right.

How many's in your family? There's actually nine.

Five boys and four girls. Wow! Yeah.

You need to have your home economics worked out to do that stuff.

Definitely, definitely. Yeah.

It's a very Irish looking-dish, isn't it? Yes.

We were thinking of you. You know what I'm saying?

We wanted you to feel at home! Aye!

After a few years, sometimes you stand back and you look around

and you think, "Oh, my God,

"I was actually thinking about this when I was ten years old."

And suddenly I didn't know that that dream

that I had when I was ten was the thing that was driving me

the whole time - do you get that feeling sometimes?

You know, I often think and I think of my parents, my mum and clad,

where I got the love of food.

You know, I remember cooking for seven people in the restaurant

and we struggled, we genuinely found it very difficult to pay our bills.

So we were very lucky that we stuck it out, I believed we could make

it work on Blacklion, but it's about a great team.

I do know chefs are driven people, but I'm just thinking to myself,

what would be the next step for you?

Do you know what, Adrian, I'm 48 and I'm content, I have two lovely kids,

my wife, Imelda, we have a very "consistent" business,

I love that word, so we're just enjoying it.

Ancl I think you can only take one clay, one week at a time.

I have no ambition to own other restaurants, I'm so happy,

we love doing it, it's great fun.

Ancl this is a three-year-old balsamic, so I'll put a good slug.

Ancl the older gets, it's even sweeter, so it is.

So we need to just taste that, that's looking really good.

I wish that was the same with people!

NEVEN LAUGHS

You know, I've got very ratty as I've got older, you know what I mean?

Oh, that's brilliant! You know, grumpy old men and all that stuff.

So we're going to serve this up. So, Adrian, with this, we're going to do

a little bit of a sweet potato fondant. OK.

So a nice little kind of like pipe of this.

So if you just put the cabbage anywhere there, perfect. OK.

So we'll just slice this nice and thin

so it's nice and pink, but not too rare.

So what do you think? Four slices? Would you be happy with that?

I'd be very happy. Would you be happy with that one?

Just arrange that. That's fantastic. So lovely.

Ancl then our sauce. Ancl that's it.

Voila!

Is it tender? Mm!

Happy? It's really, really delicious. Good.

That is so succulent, that piece of duck. They're great.

It takes to that sauce very, very well.

Yeah. Tasty? That's a beautiful dish.

Thank you. Thanks, Neven. You're a gentleman, Adrian,

great to have you, thank you.

Next, I'll share some childhood memories,

as I head back to where I grew up...

My father was the foreman on that bridge. He was indeed.

The connections are huge here for me and the family.

...and good times with old friends,

as we rediscover some lost Irish tunes.

It was a real surprise,

some of the tunes had never been heard before.

I'm Adrian Dunbar, and, although it may not look like it,

I'm crossing a border,

from the Republic of Ireland, into Northern Ireland.

We're on our way to County Fermanagh - my county -

and the town of Enniskillen, where I was born.

A beautiful island town between two massive lakes.

So I'm hoping we're going to get out on the lakes.

We're going to see Devenish Island, the spiritual heart of the county -

a place I've been many, many times before, of course.

And I'm going to meet an old friend of mine, Frankie Roof e,

who's going to take us round the town.

Whenever I'm back in Fermanagh, I truly feel at home.

And, of course, it's the landscape that does it.

En route, we'll pass Cuilcagh.

With its various surroundings, it's a miracle of nature.

From limestone that was formed

by the crushed remains of tiny sea creatures millions of years ago,

when this land was the bottom of a tropical ocean,

to one of the largest expanses of blanket bog in Northern Ireland.

A wooden boardwalk - or Stairway to Heaven, as it's known -

is a climb of 450 steps leading to magnificent views.

Just 20 minutes from here,

the lush, green landscape changes into a water wonderland.

Nice to be home.

It may not have a coastline,

but one third of Fermanagh is covered by rivers,

weaving waterways,

and two lakes - Lower and Upper Lough Erne.

Combined, they stretch out for over 60km.

And in the middle of it all is Enniskillen,

Ireland's only island town and the place where I grew up.

I'm really proud to show you around,

and the best way to see it is by boat.

Hello, Frankie. Hello, Adie. Good to see you. Good to see you.

Yeah.

Here we go. Here we go. Let's go down the lake here.

Let's go down the Lough here.

Frankie Roof e is a local historian and genealogist,

and he's also an old friend of mine.

Wee drop of rain in the area, Adie. Aye, yeah.

Wouldn't be the same without a drop of rain.

We both grew up here, and it brings back many memories.

So, I mean, all this area here

is just the playground of my childhood. Yes.

I remember a kind of... ..picnics. ..picnics.

Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon.

I remember one time I'd three apples in a bag that we bought up...

And there used to be a shop called The Garden. The Garden, yeah.

I tripped on the way down there and the apples fell into the Lough

and I cut all my knees and I was crying.

And...Nurse Rooney? Yes. A legend.

A legend of a midwife,

who would have delivered loads and loads of children,

heard it, and she threw a kind of sponge over the wall

to kind of, you know... Yeah.

...clean my knees up and stuff like that. Yeah.

So all those memories, you know, are of this...this area here.

My mother's family first arrived here in the 1870s,

when my great-grandfather was RSM in the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers.

Just over 100 years later,

my father was involved with the rebuilding of the Castle Bridge.

My father was the foreman on that bridge. He was indeed.

He worked in all the bridges in Fermanagh.

He was great at shutter joinery,

which is kind of building shapes for concrete.

The connections are... Yeah. ..are huge here for me and the family.

# But friends and companions

# I'll take you with me

# Down memory's lane

# Ancl I hope you'll agree

# God's gift to old Ireland

# Ancl its towns in between

# On the banks of Lough Erne

# Ancl her island so green... #

We are now making our way to Devenish Island,

a place I visited many times -

a place for many to reflect and recharge.

# Oh, Devenish, in dreams

# You look so serene

# With your lofty round tower

# Ancl bells that have a ring

# Your walls may be silent

# But to me, you're the queen

# Of lovely Lough Erne

# Ancl her island so green... #

It's some bit of water.

There's more water here in the lake than there is in the Norfolk Broads

and the Lake District and everything put together.

It's a beautiful place. A fantastic place.

We would have went down as children. Yeah.

You know, you and a mate and a couple of girls,

and everything would be great, you'd have a great day out.

Then you'd have to row against the flow...

...back home. ..on the way back.

Rowing against the flow - that was the big thing.

That was the tester. That was the tester. Definitely was, yeah.

# Oh, Devenish, in dreams

# You look so serene

# With your lofty round tower

# Ancl bells that have a ring... #

Breaking the skyline behind me,

you can see the Round Tower of Devenish,

a very famous spot, with the abbey below it.

Really the spiritual heart of the county, in my opinion.

It's a beautiful place.

# Many years from this county, Fermanagh, I've been

# Next summer, please God, I'll go back there again

# Where they're cutting their corn

# Ancl the meadows do gleam

# Round the banks of Lough Erne

# Ancl her island so green. #

So, Frankie, here we are.

We find ourselves in this incredible sixth-century abbey

of St Molaise here on Devenish Island. Yeah.

And the spiritual centre of Fermanagh, really.

It's on all our crests and all our badges and everything.

I mean, this is the closest monastic island... Yeah.

...to the town of Enniskillen.

Devenish is one of a chain of island monasteries

stretched across the lakes.

It was a place of worship, scholarship and burial.

People lived, worked and prayed here,

and pilgrims were always welcomed.

Monasteries were like little villages.

Everything was built by the monks

and those who followed them onto the island.

There's no quarry on the island.

All of the stonework that you see here... All this here.

...was brought here... ..to build all this. ..to build all this.

These monks were stonemasons.

That was all the trades and occupations that they had.

But the ordinary people from the area

were the ones that brought the stone to the island.

So then they would have had a massive farm. Correct.

They would have fisheries here. Correct.

They would have been breeding trout. Correct.

They would have been catching salmon.

They had whatever was needed to create a system

and a living quarters on this island.

Devenish was one of Ireland's most important monasteries

and remained so for over 1,000 years.

But life wasn't always calm.

But then, of course, our old friends, the Vikings, arrived. Yes.

And when the Vikings arrived,

they started coming up the river systems.

And the first thing they would go for are these monasteries,

because, of course, they knew...

Gold, silver. ..there was gold, silver.

It was very seldom that they were beaten. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were vicious. They were pretty scary boys.

Correct. Very, very vicious.

The Vikings attacked Devenish

in both the eighth and ninth centuries.

But others continue to raid long after the Vikings had gone.

And, in the 12th century, this Round Tower was built

to keep the monastic treasures safe in time of troubles.

It survived, whilst many of the surrounding churches

were burnt to the ground by attackers.

The monks and islanders would have run to the safety of the tower

and pulled up a ladder to the doorway,

two and a half metres above the ground,

thus ensuring access was extremely difficult for any invader.

20 metres further up were the bells that could sound the alarm.

BELL RINGS

Well, that's impressive, isn't it? Yeah.

And so they would have taken all their possessions...?

They would have had their gold and their silver and...

Yeah, their chalices... Yes. ..and all that.

And they would have taken them up into the tower. Yes.

Ancl there's a well in there for water.

They would have had a storage place to keep their stuff in,

the foodstuff that would have been preserved as well,

so that they could last... outlast the Vikings.

But they would have spotted them

because there's four windows up here, isn't there?

Yeah, right at the top. At the cardinal point. Yeah.

So that they would have seen right down the lake.

Yeah, right down past the end of the island. Yeah.

And all the way up, practically all the way up there,

towards the town as well. On a good, clear clay. Wow.

Which we didn't get today! Right, Frankie, let's go.

COWS MOO

The wind is picking up. There's no doubt about it, Frankie.

I think we'd better get back to the boat. Yeah.

As the wind gathers pace,

I'm off to take cover in my favourite pub,

which is just a short hop from here, in the centre of Enniskillen.

If I'm going to have a drink,

there's only one place I'm going to go,

and that's Blakes of the Hollow.

And it just so happens that three good friends of mine

are going to be there, playing a few tunes.

So we'll go and see if we can get a pint off them.

TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC PLAYS

Blakes of the Hollow is one of Ireland's

most well-known Victorian pubs.

For over 125 years,

traditional Irish hospitality has been at its very core.

I've been coming here since I was old enough to have a pint.

And meeting up with my old friends, Gabriel, Pat andjim,

is something I always look forward to.

Irish music is deep-rooted in all of them.

That is absolutely marvellous. Thank you very much.

Boys, sound as a pound.

Well, I mean, I can't get more home than where I am right now

in Blakes of the Hollow, but I'm very delighted, actually,

to be here with three excellent musicians,

great men from about the county.

There's jim McGrath, Gabriel McArdle here,

with Pat McManus, who comes from a family

that's steeped in the Irish music tradition here in the county.

I, in many respects was very lucky, you know, because my clad

and the tradition of the music were going back for many generations.

In fact, back to that book - the john Gunn Book, it was known as.

The Gunn Book, of course, is a very famous book of tunes

that were kept... You know, Fermanagh tunes.

And of course, Pat, your...

you know, your ancestry is all hooked into that, isn't it?

Yes, yeah.

In around 1850, Pat's great-great-grandfather

was undoubtedly one of the best musicians in the county.

He wrote down almost 200 tunes

in what became known as the john Gunn Book.

It was lost from the family for many years,

but recently Pat received a call

to say the book will soon be returned home to him.

It had been on one of the islands. Right.

A custodian had it there, was keeping it there,

but it rightly belonged, I suppose, to the...

...to our side of the family, you know? Yes, yes.

So there was great tunes in there,

and Fermanagh tunes in particular, you know? Yeah.

My father knew a lot of the tunes,

but he didn't know all of them that were in there.

So it was...it was quite a rarity

because, in Ireland, I think there was only one other book,

O'Neill's Book, which is a very famous collection of various tunes.

So people were really surprised

when we actually got to look at the book

and see the tunes and hear some of the tunes

that had never been heard before. Wow. So...

It's an incredible story,

and Pat, Gabriel andjim are still playing tunes from this book today.

Through them, the songs and the tunes will be kept alive

for generations to come.

Sound. Thanks very much, boys.

Gaby, you never lost it. Thank you. THEY LAUGH

Good man. Thanks,jim. Thank you very much.

Have a drink anyway, boys.

You know it financed the whole craic.

THEY LAUGH

Next, after eating world-famous Carlingford oysters

for many years...

My God, that's good, isn't it?

...I'm put to work on the farm.

It's a young man's game, doing that job.

Yes, a young man's game is right.

I'm Adrian Dunbar,

and we're nearing the end of this part of our Irish road trip.

So far, I've shared many childhood memories.

And on my way to Carlingford, our last stop, I want to share one more.

En route is the city of Armagh,

and I just couldn't drive past without dropping in

to one of my favourite places that I went to as a child,

and it might just surprise you.

Built in 1968,

this is the longest-running planetarium in the British Isles.

I can still remember how I felt sitting here over 50 years ago,

seeing these incredible images

which helped fuel my love of the stars -

something that has never left me.

Sequence starts.

Six, five, four...

Oh, that's amazing.

...two, one, zero.

Here we go. All engines running.

Liftoff! We have a liftoff!

Wow, look at that.

It's fantastic. H E CH UCKLES

It was definitely worth making this detour.

It's as mesmerising now as it was all those years ago.

Wow, look at the Moon, man.

It's that whole thing of lying back and staring off into space.

It was enough to keep you quiet as a kid, which is something else.

I firmly believe that astronomy was definitely the first science.

I could get lost in here for many hours...

Really extraordinary.

...but our last stop is calling.

We've been up the north-west, the Wild Atlantic Way.

We've come down through Fermanagh and the Lakes and through Armagh

and crossed over onto the charming east coast.

Next stop, Carlingford in Ireland's ancient east.

With history running through its core,

Carlingford is considered to be the jewel in the crown

of this ancient landscape.

The ruins of the 13th-century King John's Castle

keep a watch over the deep-water bay of Carlingford Lough...

...an inlet that rests between the Cooley Mountains

and the Mountains of Mourne.

The lough is celebrated not only for its breathtaking beauty,

but also for its hidden treasures.

Beneath the waters, Carlingford oysters thrive in their masses.

They're famous all over the world,

and I've been eating them for many years.

So couldn't resist an invite to the farm.

So we'll go right out to the deepest part. OK.

In a few hours it's five metres of water above you.

Five metres? Five metres.

So we'll be swimming... Yeah, right. ..in a couple of hours.

If you want to hang around, you're more than welcome,

but I'm getting out. Yeah, right.

No, that would be quite cold, I think. Yeah.

Brian McGill has worked here for over ten years.

There must be miles of oyster beds here.

It's around 60,000+ bags. 60,000? Yeah.

It you put it line to line, it's about 32km.

It's quite a lot of bags. Yeah, yeah.

So how many oysters, then, do you produce each year?

The target is to go around two million. Two million? Yeah.

You know, we ship 52 weeks of the year. Yeah.

So you've got to keep that constant production.

It's two and a half to three years to grow one oyster.

And where do you ship to, mostly?

Obviously, Ireland, UK, Asia - Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand -

Italy... I mean, I've eaten your oysters, by the way,

all over London... Yeah. ..In all the best restaurants.

It's amazing where our oysters are.

Whether it's in Chiltern Firehouse, Rick Stein's or the Savoy,

it's kind of mind-blowing. It's a good feeling for us.

We're all very proud of it here. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, you should be. Yeah.

Oysters have a long history in Ireland.

Discarded shell fossils have been found on Irish beaches

dating back 5,000 years,

and oyster fishing is documented back to the 1500s.

Now a delicacy,

these ocean gifts were once seen as the food of the poor,

keeping many starving people alive during the famine.

That's... You see that one there?

That's...that's the size of the oyster when they arrive.

That's the size when they arrive.

Ancl there's about 1,000 oysters in that bag. Wow.

That would be 100 kilos of oysters when fully grown.

Even there - that's grown quite a bit.

It would have been like a teacup full of oysters

that went into that bag. Really? Earlier on in the spring, yeah. Wow.

And already it's that. Yeah.

Kian is heir to this oyster empire and works with his father,

Peter Louet-Feisser, who founded this farm in 1978.

They work hard to ensure each oyster reaches perfection.

Not easy when you're competing with the tides.

There's only a window of around ten hours every two weeks

where you can actually get to the oyster beds.

Right now, the conditions are perfect,

so I'm put to work for my lunch.

So lift the bag up.

Pull it towards you. Brilliant.

OK, and then what you want to do is use your strength -

three shakes on the side.

Ancl you can see all the shells falling into the sea.

Yes, so that's the new growth? Yeah, that's all the new growth.

You're just kind of keeping that in check.

This is just the secret to growing oysters -

just to turn the bags regularly and just keep them in check. Yeah.

If you just let them grow ahead without doing this,

the shape deteriorates.

But if you keep turning them, you've got a lovely teardrop oyster.

It's nice and deep and there's plenty of room for the meat inside

and you get that lovely sweetness and the fatness

in the oyster, and all the extra flavour. Uh-huh. One more.

Jeez, you'd be tired enough doing that all day.

It's tough going, like. It's a young man's game, doing that job.

Yes, a young man's game is right. Yeah.

OK. You do that one, I'll do this one. Yeah.

Fabulous.

What I'd really like to do is maybe try a couple of them.

See what we can do. Let's see what we can do.

Carlingford oysters' unique flavour comes from the lough itself.

There's an enormous exchange of water with each tide

that provides the nutrients the oysters need to thrive.

Even the same species of oyster grown in a different bay

will taste different because they're feeding naturally

from the plankton that's growing in this bay.

Ancl the different species of plankton

will be affected by the nutrients in the water. Uh-huh.

So what we're really trying to do here

is kind of grow the best oysters that we can coming from our bay.

So the rounder and deeper your oysters are,

the more space there is for the oyster meat inside. Yes.

So it's going to be... So you're looking for that deep shell. Yeah.

That guy looks great. Yeah.

So the flavour comes from...

See the colour in the gill? See that white colour?

Yes. That's a reserve. When the oyster's in really good condition,

that's kind of a reserve of glycogen and fat,

and it gives it a sweet taste -

the same way as cream has sweet taste or even a nice steak.

You know, the marbling in a steak gives... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the same, except it's a fish oil,

so it's actually very, very good for you. OK.

So, would you like to try that, sir? I certainly would.

My God, that's good, isn't it? So there's plenty of flavour.

Like, people used to just swallow the oysters.

If you've never eaten an oyster before,

the saltwater can be a bit overpowering.

So if you sip the water first,

and it gives you a pre-taste of the oyster.

There's loads of flavour.

It is like taking a mouthful of the sea...

...but it's really meaty.

There's a lot of meat in it, you know? Yeah.

It's not... it just doesn't kind of, you know, disappear. No.

There's a lot to grab hold of in that oyster.

That's really amazing, yeah. Yeah.

It's mineral water for you. HE LAUGHS

Yeah.

Cheers, boys.

That works. Oh, this is a great way to spend your clay.

I'm going to have another one here because I can't... Yeah.

Next time, we continue our journey in Ireland's ancient east

to reveal the drama of Irish pre-history.

Wow! Look at that!

From a megalithic marvel...

So in 5,000 years, we've lost four minutes,

which, as a time-telling device, is pretty good.

...to an ancient lighthouse.

What you're looking at, Adrian, is an 800-year-old,

fully intact medieval lighthouse. Wow.

An old friend and famous chef invites me for brunch...

Mmm! That's so good.

...and we'll visit a truly spectacular country house.

That's just got to be one of the most beautiful views in Ireland.

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